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art

This morning, as I do most mornings,I took my paints and painted the sky blue.Today for some reason, I opted for Cornflower,it seemed to fit my mood and the neighbors cat,after considering it for a few momentsseemed to agree with my choice, though shesuggested tomorrow might be better servedby either Carolina Blue or Iceberg, butif I don’t sleep all that well tonight,I suspect I will just go with Cool Gray.The Cardinal says anything darker thanDark Pastel blues is unacceptable since it takes away from his beauty, but that vanityaside, it takes too long to sweep aside the clouds to do the second coat the brighter blues all demand.

“You know,” she said, “it is the critics,they are the real problem, all holy and self-proclaimed arbiters of taste,deciding what is and is not art, as ifGod spoke late one night and declaredto each one that he or she and onlyhe or she would determine what is art.”I wanted to argue with her, but Iwas standing in a gallery where the signs requested silence, thatand I really had no argument with what she said, for I knewthat taste was personal, that arthad no hard metrics, this is, this isn’t,there is no ruler, no gauge, no scale.Add to that the fact that Itruly love exotic mushrooms, morels,enoki, the odder the better, and shefinds all fungus disgusting, belongingin its earthly grave, and though wrong,it is her taste after all, so there it is.

In a bit less
than an hour
a new exhibit
will open
empty space will
be occupied
with moving
bodies of artist
and viewer,
universes will form
a thousand children
will be born
an old man in
a distant city
will slip away
a contented look
pressed into
his face
world leaders
will ask why
and have
no answers,
but all of that
is not now,
but in a bit
less than
an hour.

As you walk throughthis particular spacewill you see a smallchild perched on a stool,crayons in hand, a smallrectangle of paperon the top of the desklaughing, creatinga world you couldnever hope to understand,or an older woman, leaningon her walker, staringinto the canvas, strugglingto see each brush strokeand three workmenwhite hard hats, retractablerules and laser levels, measuring the galleryagainst the blueprintwhich are artists —which is art —does it matter?